


Kiss the Cook

by futurefishy



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Minor Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Post-The Raven King, Pre-Opal side story, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Ronan tries to grieve by baking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 08:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17097275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurefishy/pseuds/futurefishy
Summary: The Lynch's had a family cook book. This is what Ronan just found at the back of the kitchen cupboard.





	Kiss the Cook

The Lynch’s had a family cook book. The current iteration had started with Ronan’s grandmother, who at some point in the 1950s had copied her mother’s recipes into a leather-bound scrapbook. The book had been passed around and added to, surviving many accidents involving gravy and jam and an overzealous hand-mixer. Niall Lynch brought the book over to America with him where he and Aurora had continued the tradition, adding some American recipes that would have had Mary Lynch turning in her grave and even writing little notes with substitutions for things that were hard to find in Virginia. After over half a century of cooking mishaps — including one occasion where a thirteen year old Declan Lynch had accidentally set a hot pan down on it and singed the back cover — the book was only being held together by sticky tape and sheer determination.

This is what Ronan Lynch had just found at the back of the kitchen cupboard.

He recognised it immediately, having spent many Saturday afternoons making bread or cake or biscuits (not the American kind) with the book open on the counter. The memory that sprung to mind now was from a long time ago, when Ronan was still small enough to need a foot stool to reach the counter-top.

He was reading out the ingredients while his father searched around in the fridge and the cupboards for them, saying “check” or “got it” or “there we go” as he set each down on the worktop. Then his father got out the kitchen scales, and Ronan helped measure everything out. He poured the flour carefully into the bowl, with his father guiding his hands, watching the number on the digital scale tick up.

“Aaand done!” Ronan announced, as the number on the scale matched the one in the recipe book.

His father laughed warmly, “Now what's next?”

As Ronan looked back to the book to read the next amount, his mother walked into the kitchen, carrying a very small and very fussy Matthew, who was sniffling against his mother's chest.

“Helping your dad with the bread?” She asked, putting a hand on Ronan's shoulder.

“Yep!” He smiled.

His mother ruffled his hair, and said, “Good boy.”

Then, to his father, she said, “I'm going to help Declan with his homework, if this little one will let me put him down.” She bounced Matthew in her arms a little.

At the phrase “put him down” Matthew grabbed at his mother's shirt and yelled, “No! No, mommy!”

As his mother tried to sooth Matthew, Ronan tried to remember if _he_ was like that when he was two.

His father smiled and kissed her, and Ronan looked away in the slight disgust all children feel seeing their parents be mushy and romantic, “I'll give you a hand while the bread's proving. Ronan, can you read me the next bit?”

It took Ronan a moment to realise he was crying. He'd been crying a lot, lately, wandering the Barns and finding it a lot less homely now that he was the only one there. It was the kind of quiet, hopeless crying that didn't try to attract attention, because there was nothing anyone could do to fix this. Niall and Aurora Lynch were dead and buried side-by-side in the graveyard behind St. Agnes', and every Sunday after church Ronan went to replace the flowers, feeling just as sad and empty as he did the week before.

He was trying to grieve in a way that was less self-destructive. Trying, and not being especially successful. He was living at the Barns and not going to school, so most of the time he only had Opal for company and she was much more interested in finding out what the world outside Cabeswater was like.

Ronan flicked open the recipe book, seeing the familiar handwriting of his grandmother and his parents scrawled across the pages. He took out his phone and snapped a picture of an ingredients list, then grabbed his jacket and drove to the supermarket. There were worse ways to grieve than by making bread.

* * *

Hours later, the whole house smelled like a bakery. There was flour all over the place because chainsaw thought it was funny to knock things over, and Opal had decided to play in it and had tracked it through the house as she ran away giggling. But Ronan didn't mind all that much, because he was eating home-made bread – still warm from the oven – for the first time since his father died. And it was good enough to cry over.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/futurefishy), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/futurefishy/) and [tumblr](http://futurefishy.tumblr.com/) if you like (feel free to chat with me about whatever). If you want to see my art, I have a seperate [art Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/futurefishydraws/) and [art tumblr](http://futurefishydraws.tumblr.com/).


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